


old and grey and full of sleep

by Neko-no-Tsuki (LunaKat)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Character Study, Early in Canon, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/Neko-no-Tsuki
Summary: For Inuyasha Sins Week. Day 1: Sloth.The worst part of it all, Inuyasha muses bitterly while peering out at a world that is fifty years changed, is that he didn’t even get to dream it away.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Inuyasha's Seven Deadly Sins





	old and grey and full of sleep

_“When you are **old and gray and full of sleep** , and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.”  
_—William Butler Yeats

The terrible thing about being asleep for half a century is that it doesn’t _feel_ like it.

Sleep is the natural enemy of time. You don’t feel time when you’re sleeping, not _really_. Not the way you feel it when you’re awake. Because you can tell the difference between a few hours versus the whole night, but that has more to do with how rested you feel afterwards and what the sky looks like when you open your eyes again, more than anything.

But if there’s only the darkness behind your eyelids, only yourself and your soul and desire to escape all the terrible things in the world, then there’s nothing stopping you from sleeping your whole life away.

The worst part of it all, Inuyasha muses bitterly while peering out at a world that is fifty years changed, is that he didn’t even get to dream it away. At least, he doesn’t think he did—if there were any dreams, any pleasant things that unfurled inside his stagnant mind, then they were lost when he woke up. When he remembered the last image he saw before the sleep took him, before the arrow’s magic sank into his veins and stilled the beat of his heart until he was as good as a corpse laying slack against the holy tree.

She was the first thing he remembered, upon waking up. The burn of fury, of hurt, of _hatred_ searing the back of his throat until he couldn’t even breathe over the metaphorical fumes. His last memory of that _bitch_ glaring him down, her bowstring still vibrating its guilt.

How _dare_ she sentence him, like a condemned criminal, when she was the one who turned on him first. How _dare_ she decide he was the one who deserved punishment, when she was the one who lured him in just to stomp on his heart just for kicks.

Pleasant things were hard to recall, in the face of such a bitter betrayal.

What amazes him now is that he never noticed this sadistic side before, this cruelty that lived beneath her bones. But he sees it now, clear as crystal. Sees it in the fundamental _wrongness_ that is the waking world around him.

 _Everything_ is wrong. With the world, with the people, with every single thread in the fabric of reality as it is now. The bratty kid he once knew became a one-eyed withered hag. The bitch herself is ten feet under, probably enjoying how _ordinary_ she is in her death. Some dumb lookalike with none of Kikyo’s keenness or prowess totes around the Jewel like a decorative ornament instead of the precious thing it is. And the village he used to observe from the forest, silently cataloging the placement of the huts and the shape of the fields, has rearranged itself into strange configurations. Even the air doesn’t smell right, too earthy to be sweet, not enough floral perfume brightening the air—one sniff, and he can tell this isn’t the same spring as when he went under.

Fucking sleep spells. He didn’t even know that was a thing, but the old hag said it was. Something to render him dormant for all eternity, trap him inside his own body without his even knowing. A deathless slumber.

But it sure as hell didn’t _feel_ like sleep, when the darkness pulled him under. Sleep isn’t usually so violent, so forceful and demanding of total surrender. Sleep doesn’t drag you down beneath a crushing pressure until you feel like crying out, until you want to scream at the person who did this to you and rip her eyes (eyes you used to love, once upon a time) out from her skull just to make it stop.

It didn’t _feel_ like sleep. It _felt_ like dying, in the way he thinks that dying would feel like if it were so maliciously painless. All-consuming, and persistently cold, and sucking at his soul the way deep mud would suck wetly at your feet when you try to wade your way through it.

Just thinking about it gives him chills.

Just thinking about it makes him want to break every bone in Kikyo’s fucking dead body.

Wary looks are spared his way, with absolutely no attempt at discretion. Nothing he isn’t used to, but uncomfortable nonetheless. He keeps his distance from the ground and the villagers who tread, makes sure to stay as far up in the trees or perched on the roofs as possible—it doesn’t make the any less afraid, but it means he won’t be constantly breathing in the stench of their fear.

No one here is particularly pleased about his presence, about the fact that he’s awake and aware and seemingly invited himself into their town. They keep their distance when they can, which he appreciates to a degree. But the elders in particular seem tense around him—and not in the jumpy, nervous way that he’s come to effect just for looking a little less human than he does. Compared to the younger folks, who quicken their pace in his proximity or keep their eyes lowered like they think he can’t see them if they don’t look at him, the elders seem to have a certain resentment in them. They don’t make any effort to hide their discontent, cast him narrowed-eyed glared with a certain blackness their eyes, a roiling rage that leaves Inuyasha fidgeting more than he would care for. They’ll grit their teeth and mutter things about monsters and make a point of slowing their pace around him as though to prove they aren’t scared.

(Only much later does he realize it’s probably because they remember when he burned their village down. Them, and only them.

Entire generations have lived their lives not knowing who he is.

Suddenly, he can’t breathe.)

This is wrong. This is _wrong_. Even the woods, his once-refuge from the human world, don’t feel the same, don’t welcome him into their midst as an old friend might—there is something too stiff about its embrace now, like it can’t remember him but is too polite to say otherwise and is just going along with it until he leaves.

Shapes in the fields have changed, shrunken or enlarged in confusing ways with seemingly no explanation. Huts scatter the village in no particular pattern. The shrine stands in an entirely different place. Grown adults whisper about Kikyo like she’s more myth than a person.

He closed his eyes for a moment—and the whole fucking world changed.

Having youkai blood means a lot of things. Along with strength and ostracism, one of those things is an extended lifespan. Years mean less to him than they would a human, don’t stretch out in quite the right way, move a little too slow and mattering much less to his body. Fifty years, in the grand scheme of things, won’t leave him old and wrinkled the way it did the hag. Inuyasha knows this.

He knows this. But.

This is different, somehow. This is fifty years of his life that he _didn’t_ live. This is fifty years of his life—gone.

 _Gone_.

If he didn’t hate Kikyo already, he would just for this. Because there is nothing worse than the theft of a lifetime, even just a piece of one, and feeling the ache where it should be. There is nothing worse than having someone take what rightfully belongs to you and knowing you can never get it _back_.

So he hates. He hates Kikyo for taking those years from him. He hates her fifty times over, one for every stolen year that he spent pinned to that _fucking tree_ —all because she managed to win his trust, for even a moment.

And he hates himself for letting her.

The only bright side in all of this—a pathetic silver lining, but a silver lining nonetheless—is that the Shikon Jewel is still around, practically ripe for the taking. That the stupid girl shouldering Kikyo’s resemblance, the Jewel’s new and reluctant guardian, has none of her predecessor’s keenness or prowess. Enchanted beads or no, he can beat her.

He’s not going to wait around, this time. Not going to hesitate, not going to waver or let himself be lulled into a false sense of security. He doesn’t have the luxury.

Inuyasha is going to take the Jewel or die trying. He has too much lost time to make up for.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t think we, as a fandom, talk about the fact that Inuyasha probably had a whole Rip Van Winkle thing going on in the early part of the series.


End file.
